Finally: Internet Buzzing as Treasure Trove of Classified JFK Files Are Released by Biden Admin

By Abby Liebing December 15, 2021 at 3:41pm

The Biden administration has allowed the release of formerly classified documents that could shed light on President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

In an October memorandum from the White House, the National Archives and Records Administration was instructed to release previously withheld assassination-related records.

CNN reported that about 1,500 documents have been released, but that still leaves another 10,000 that have been either withheld completely or partially redacted.

Speculation and conspiracy theories have abounded since Kennedy’s 1963 assassination. Researchers have argued that the CIA, FBI and other federal agencies have spent years stonewalling congressional mandates to release information.

The Biden administration’s October memo noted that in 1992, “Congress declared that ‘all Government records concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy . . . should be eventually disclosed to enable the public to become fully informed about the history surrounding the assassination.’

“The Congress also found that ‘most of the records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy are almost 30 years old, and only in the rarest cases is there any legitimate need for continued protection of such records,'” the memo added.

However, even with the release of over 1,000 documents, some JFK researchers say it’s not enough.

“Longtime JFK researchers say the release likely does not include a smoking gun that would substantively change the public understanding of the circumstances surrounding Kennedy’s death — nor, historians argue, does one likely exist elsewhere,” CNN reported.

Fox News reported that many of the newly released documents concern Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, as well as tensions between the U.S. and Cuba.

Should all documents regarding Kennedy's assassination be released?

Few are expecting the release to sway public opinion or resolve doubts about the assassination.

“Because it has taken [the government] so long to get these records out, no matter what comes out, no one is going to believe that that’s it,” one official told CNN.

It seems likely, though, that many more JFK documents will be declassified and released over the next year.

Agencies that would keep certain documents classified past December 2022 must provide the Biden administration with “an unclassified index identifying for each such record the reasons for which the agency is proposing continued postponement of information in such record,” as the October memo outlined.

These requirements are simply in line with the standards and timelines set by Congress for declassification.

“President Biden’s memo reinforces the strict standards established by Congress and holds agencies to a strict timeline and well-structured process,” Ezra Cohen, chairman of the Public Interest Declassification Board, said in a statement, according to CNN.

The National Archives said over 90 percent of the records have been released. Most of those documents are tax records.

Twitter users immediately weighed in on the release of the new files.

Oh look. From the new JFK files just released moments ago by the @USNatArchives, a detailed top secret CIA memo from October 11, 1963, six weeks BEFORE the assassination, talking about Lee Harvey Oswald, whom Agency told the Warren Commission they had almost no foreknowledge of. pic.twitter.com/zT0WrK5eBo

— Fernand Amandi (@AmandiOnAir) December 15, 2021

In short: we will never know who killed JFK, which is exactly why we all know who killed JFK. #JFK

— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) December 15, 2021

The vast majority of the almost 1,500 JFK documents released by the National Archives as new appear to be…duplicates of previously released documents with only a few redacted words revealed… https://t.co/Uhj17nd4Au

— Vaughn Sterling (@vplus) December 15, 2021

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